INDICES> statins and rhabdomyolysis

["Dr.L.Offerhaus" <lo@euronet.nl>]

INDICES> statins and rhabdomyolysis
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Dear colleagues,

As a result of the dramatic developments around Bayer's HMG CoA-
reductase inhibitor I have been asked as an editor by an 
anonymous reader of a medical journal whether this side effect (or 
interaction?) is a group effect of all statins or whether it is limited to 
the Bayer compound and/or the interaction with unwarranted 
combination with gemfibrozil. It looks as if it is common to all drugs 
of the same group, and I quote Dr.Tobert from Merck (Dollery I, 
p.G15): "6 of the 17 reported cases of lovastatin-associated myositis 
were also taking gemfibrozil, the risk of this complication increasing 
from 0.2% with lovastatin alone to 8% in patients on both drugs"; all 
statin data sheets warn against combining the two drugs, but exact 
figures on incidence are not mentioned and are hard to obtain. I 
have been told that EMEA will look at the group as a whole. Can 
anybody help with a conclusive answer? Thanks in advance.


Dr.L.Offerhaus
Koedijklaan 1a, NL-1406KW Bussum, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-35-6923288.  Fax: +31-35-6923290
E-mail: LO@EURONET.NL  CompuServe disconnected from 1/3/2001


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